


the strange death of Elizabeth Cooper

by WolfOfAnsbach



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Demonic Possession, F/M, Halloween, Horror, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 03:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16467857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfAnsbach/pseuds/WolfOfAnsbach
Summary: Betty Cooper, after a long struggle with illness, has passed away.Except--she hasn't, because against all rhyme and reason, she awakens on the coroner's slab, hale and healthy. The illness is gone, and she couldn't be in better condition, to the weeping relief of her friends and family, not least of all her longtime boyfriend, Jughead Jones. No real explanation is forthcoming, but what does it really matter, when Betty is alive?And he can discount the occasional oddity in her behavior. She's been through a lot, after all.Except, as the days go by and the strange happenings pile on, Jughead begins to suspect that whatever it is that crawled out of the grave that day isn't really Betty Cooper.





	the strange death of Elizabeth Cooper

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to put something out before/on Halloween, so consequently this is a little rushed. I hope people can still enjoy it, though.

He cranked up the thermostat, but it didn’t do much for the cold. It was wet outside. The mist hung on to everything, and the clouds were bunched up together in those big knots that kept any sunlight clear out. There was not much breeze yet, but there surely would be by nightfall.

Even if Jughead could do away with all of that, he wouldn’t be able to make the cold go away, because it wasn’t really a natural cold. It was that sort of dreadful, miserable black despair that starts in the marrow. He cranked the thermostat up higher. It was like throwing a twig into the fireplace. Meaningless gesture.

He was scared, more than anything. Right now there was an odd numbness gripping his stomach and his throat. It was everywhere, and felt like a kind of shell. It was protecting him from the full brunt of the pain. When it broke he wouldn’t be able to stand or talk. So it was best to cling to the numbness as long as he could. At least until the ceremonies were over. He stood.

It wasn’t entirely real yet and he didn’t want it to be. Watching Betty’s chest rise and fall and then fall and rise no more. Her hand, quick cooling, slipped out of his. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper held each other and wept. Archie’s hand on his shoulder. All those faces and colors. It felt like something he’d written. So odd and detached.

For so long he and everyone else had steeled themselves for it and it wasn’t enough. She was _sick_ . He knew it. Everyone knew it. The doctors did their best, and then they said they’d ‘make her comfortable.’ He _hated_ that. He _hated_ how you could couch such an ugly eventuality in such fluffy words. ‘Comfortable’ was when Betty curled up with him on the couch and they watched bad horror movies until sunup. It wasn’t her lying in a hospital bed, lips pale and pink and skin denuded of color.

Even then she’d try to keep it light best she could. “ _I won’t be around forever, Jughead_ ,” Betty would even tease.

And he’d tell her to knock it off because, “ _you’ll be around for a long time, yet,”_ even though both of them knew it wasn’t true. He hated himself for being so miserable when _she_ was the one that was dying for God’s sake, and he hated himself for being unable to

He visited often as he could, and he stayed nights with her by the window-sill and turned the pages when she became too weak, because every moment had to be measured and cherished.

Their friends came more and more often, because time was short and everyone in town knew. They had all prepared. _She_ had prepared, and tried her best not to be afraid.

But all the preparation did little in the end.

It felt like his ribcage was splintering. And the shards of bone were digging their way into his heart and lungs. Dying hurt, even when it wasn’t his death. He hoped it hadn’t hurt too much for Betty.

He wiped away a few more tears.

Jughead didn’t know he’d be strong enough for the funeral, but a powerful guilt would force him there whether he liked it or not. If Betty’s _family_ was strong enough to go, _he_ ought to be. He was only her boyfriend, after all. High school kids were dumb and it didn’t matter. Less than ever, now.

But if he went, then maybe it would become too real.

Something buzzed and through his miserable shell he barely heard it, and it took even longer, wrapped up in the agony of the moment, for him to realize it was a text. He picked up his phone and opened it. From Archie.

_Jughead!_

The text was ever distinctive, and the little exclamation mark at the end in particular burned Jughead because his friend’s message didn’t come across _near_ distraught enough. What in the fuck was that cheery little punctuation doing there? His heart should be torn _out_ . So should that of _everyone_ in town. Elizabeth Cooper, who was everything sweet and good in the world, was gone, and by God no one ought to be allowed to take pleasure in _anything_.

And what in the hell could be so urgent now? The dead had all eternity. And nothing else mattered but that.

He closed his eyes and prepared to respond. He didn’t want to sound angry, even though he was. But then another message shot through.

_Betty_

‘Archie is typing’

_you have to get over here_

Jughead shook his head. What the hell could possibly have happened? Had they lost her corpse now, too? Shit, probably. That was about the level of competence he expected from this town.

 _What?,_ was the message he fired off.

The phone informed him that Archie was typing, and he was already preparing an irritated response to whatever minutiae Archie had seen fit to bother him with in this most trying time. But then Archie’s next message came through.

* * *

_She’s fine_

It was a miracle!

Jughead didn’t believe in miracles. But he didn’t have a better explanation, so he was going to defer to the judgment of the good (and as of the moment, delightedly hysterical) people of Riverdale on this one. And he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth

“How do you feel?” Alice asked, tears streaming down her cheeks, more tender than she’d probably ever sounded. She flung her fond arms around her daughter and pulled her close. Betty, who was, in defiance of modern medicine, evidently alive again, smiled very weak and hugged her mother back.

Jughead felt the tears in his eyes.

The hospital lights were blinding and everything smelled like sterilized white, but he didn’t really care. Who _could_ care? One might have thought Betty was some kind of celebrity from the mob crowded around her bedside. Jughead saw Cheryl off to the side, and even she was looking a little misty-eyed.

“How are you, baby?” Alice asked again.

Betty smiled this time, lips still pale and faded, and said very meekly: “I’m…alive, right?”

And it almost sounded like a real question.

The commotion was tremendous, and Jughead was amazed he was able to catch Dr. Patel alone in the midst of it all, even for a moment.

“What uh…what’s the story, doc?”

Patel shrugged helplessly.

“Do you believe in God, son?”

Jughead raised an eyebrow theatrically, and so buoyed by Betty’s unexpected resurrection, felt some of the usual snark creep back into his voice.

“Depends? Why do you ask?”

“Never seen anything like that,” the doctor muttered, almost sheepishly. “I…I pronounced her…well, she should have been dead for near…two days. I mean for God’s sake, she was already on her way to the morgue. I’ve never…I hope you _do_ believe in God, Mr. Jones.”

Jughead crossed his arms.

“What else could it be?”

No response.

And no one else seemed to have one, either.

From the moment Betty Cooper sat up before the stunned coroner and asked where she was, it was surprise after surprise. Because not only had she been restored to life, but restored without the gnawing illness that had so slowly ‘killed’ her over the past year. It was just…gone. And again, all the doctors could do was shrug.

It got some play in the national papers,  one of those brief human interest stories people scroll past on their way to greater things. But Riverdale didn’t get over it quite so quickly.

“Do you…remember anything?” Jughead asked, when he was finally allowed to visit with her, after her parents and sister had their turn.

“Like what?” She asked, and she didn’t seem the least bit sick anymore. Uncanny. Her voice was back in full. Her skin was right and flushed. She was… _fine_.

Jughead felt another rush of joy and relief.

“From…you know, those…two days.” He winced as soon as the words came out. Perhaps it was bad taste. But goddamned if he wasn’t curious. How often did something like this happen? Maybe it would be good for her to talk about it?

Betty pressed her lips together. She finally shook her head and sighed.

“I don’t…Jug. Not really. It’s like a long, deep sleep, you know?”

He smiled, the kind of soft, playful smile he always went for when he wanted to disarm.

“No…tunnel of light, no dead relatives. No…burning fire?” He teased.

She slapped his arm lightly and laughed. He had an aside thought that he couldn’t wait to see her out of this hospital gown and back in her normal, Betty Cooper clothes. Full and _completely alive_ again.

“No,” she replied. “Nothing like that. Just…nothing.” The windows to her hospital window fluttered. They pulled back in the breeze to reveal the fat, yellow harvest moon swimming in the sky outside. For a moment the whole scene had a very ‘Halloween’ ambience. She stared at him with her bright, oceanic Cooper eyes. They were familiar and soft and he felt such a deep sense of relief he wanted to just curl up with her and fall asleep. Except for a very brief, very brittle second where they _weren’t_ familiar, where they didn’t look like hers at all, or indeed like the eyes of any living soul he’d ever seen. That second was so fleeting, so transitory, that if it hadn’t been so mightily powerful and impressive, and hadn’t struck him so deeply with a primal sense of revulsion and fear, he might have not even noticed it.

But it _was_ only a second.

“I _missed_ you, Jug,” she half-cried, and then she flung her arms fondly around him. He returned the embrace, happy, _so happy_ , to have her back. Hale and healthy. Whole and _alive_.

“Missed you more,” he croaked, and then he was staining the hospital gown with tears.

Of course, if she truly remembered _nothing_ , if she’d really been _nowhere_ , then really, how could she _miss_ him?

But he didn’t give that much thought.

____________________________________________________________________________

Cheryl’s first thought at the wondrous news, bad as she felt about it, wasn’t relief or joy, but rather suspicion. When she’d gotten the text—and it wasn’t even from someone who mattered, like Veronica or Josie, it was just from one of her two-hundred contacts: ‘ _did u hear about Betty???’_ Just the latest bit of high school gossip—her first reaction hadn’t been delight, it had been denial. No, Betty wasn’t alive, she was very dead. And if she _was_ alive, then someone ought to prove it.

She was a doubting Thomas indeed.

Even when she saw for herself—stuck her proverbial fingers into the proverbial wounds of Christ—her immediate reaction was, to her shame, still not a rush of grateful happiness. Rather it was a basic, almost animal sense that something was deeply, deeply wrong. Betty Cooper shouldn’t be sitting up in her hospital bed talking and smiling with her friends and family. She shouldn’t be moving or even _breathing_ . Because she was _dead_. Cheryl’s immediate thought was that she was witnessing some perversion, some unnatural parody of life.

But that was silly. So she hugged Betty and told her how happy she was to have her back. And she _was,_ of course. It was silly to pay any mind to some odd, irrational current of dread that meant nothing at all.

It only took a few days, weeks at most, before Cheryl felt comfortable being horribly mean to Betty again. A part of her thought the girl might even appreciate it. Nobody liked being treated with kid gloves forever just because you’d had a rough time.

Some two weeks after Betty’s resurrection she was well and settled back into school, and into her place on the River Vixens.

“I’m sorry if I’m a little out of step,” Betty apologized sweetly. “I’m still getting back into the swing of things.”

“Well, you came back from the dead. A human pyramid shouldn’t be beyond your ken,” Cheryl drawled.

Betty smiled. It was a very peaceful, sepulchral smile.

And then they had Vixens’ practice.

Practice ended just at the cusp of evening, as it usually did. The girls filed into the locker rooms, showered, and filed out again. It was a kind of grey, hazy evening outside. The trees shed leaves. Steam hissed out from the ditches and sewer grates. It was cold.

It was Cheryl’s lot to leave last. Tough at the top.

But she wasn’t the last one this time.

It was odd that she hadn’t noticed, because she had sworn she’d seen everyone off. But as she slung her bag over her shoulder and stepped towards the door, she heard something rustle behind her.

“Hey,” the voice came, crackling soft. The school’s rattling old AC very nearly overpowered it. “Cheryl.”

The hair on Cheryl’s neck—and she’d never really thought that was a real thing—actually stood up. For a very brief moment the voice hung unidentified in her head. It sounded like a tinny, forced imitation of something familiar. When she finally recognized it, her dread was only so slightly alleviated.

Cheryl whirled around.

Betty gazed back at her from the liquid shadows of the locker room. Cheryl squinted back. She couldn’t make out her face very well. She was sort of in between the last row of lockers and the showers. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, in a tic that might have been kind of cute circumstances not considered.

“Wh—in _blazes_ are you still doing here?” Cheryl demanded.

“Can you come here for a second?” Betty asked, as always very politely and sweetly. Cheryl wavered in the doorway. Betty stood stock still in the shadows, face melting in and out of the dark. She clasped her hands at her waist. A bank of clouds peeled away from the moon, and a beam of light passed in through the window slats, and for a moment Betty’s eyes shone like fires.

Cheryl started. Every one of the primal instincts that kept her ancestors alive in the frozen wastes of ice age Europe set her nerves alight and _commanded_ her to turn tail and _go_.

“Do you…need a ride or something?” Cheryl half-scoffed, forgoing for the moment the ancient wisdom in her blood.

“No,” Betty said, near-sheepishly. “Just…well…can you come here a second?” And she took an almost imperceptible step further back into the shadows, as if beckoning her closer.  

Cheryl swallowed.

“You have a way to get home?”

“I—“

“I have to go.”

And Cheryl turned, burst through the doors, half-jogged out of the empty school, and half-leapfrogged into her car, struggling mightily not to look over her shoulder once.

* * *

 

Jughead tried to get back into the swing of things. That proved a little hard to do. One’s girlfriend dying and then getting better wasn’t a particularly common boyhood experience, but he tried nonetheless.

Betty showed up at his trailer a few weeks after her rising, with a Pop’s to-go bag in hand. He beamed, thanked her, and ushered her inside. Before she even set down the bag, she reached over and hugged him. It felt quite normal at first, and quite lovely, as she slid her arms around his shoulders. But the moment she completed the embrace and pulled him in, Jughead felt a sudden and indescribable terror burst out in his chest. His flesh prickled. Alarms went off in his head. And it was all the more terrifying because he had no clue what was _wrong_ . But something most definitely, _certainly_ was. His heart pounded wildly, and he was sure this was the feeling one must have in a dark wood the instant before some cruel set of claws laid into his flesh.

He broke the embrace with force. Betty stepped back, a little shocked.

He tried to play it off, and he put a hand on her arm and led her in to sit down.

“So, how’s tricks?” He asked with affected cheer.

“Well, my mother still checks up on me three times a night. She’s just trying to make sure I don’t die _again_ , I suppose.”

They both chuckled awkwardly.

And they sat and ate and talked, normal as ever. Except that all the while Jughead couldn’t exorcise that creeping, primal dread from his chest. Every moment, every _second_ he was with her, his entire body screamed at him that he was on the verge of something truly terrible.

“Did you hear Weatherbee’s thinking about increasing the Blue and Gold’s funding?”

“By what, $5?”

“Glass half full, Juggie,” Betty cautioned.

It all sounded so _normal_ . It was all _normal_ . So why was he _afraid_?

He kept calculating in his head the distance from the couch to the front door. Wondering how long it would take help to arrive if he needed it. Like he was in a cage with a hungry tiger. What was _wrong_ with him?

Finally, while Betty was recounting some amusing bit of River Vixens’ drama, Jughead snapped and hissed at his own subconscious: ‘ _shut up!’_

Betty stopped talking and turned. She brushed aside some of that innocent flaxen hair and asked: “Jug? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

When it was time for her to go, he hugged her only very briefly. But it wasn’t enough to hold back another rush of that same animal terror.

“If something’s bothering you, Jughead…”

“It isn’t.”

He closed the door behind her and sighed. He felt like scum. She’d just been through hell, and he was _afraid_ of her? It wasn’t even as if she was acting _odd_. He scratched his scalp and shook his head.

That night Jughead had a truly terrible round of dreams. They were the sort that truly stuck with you, even after you woke up. The sort that were horrible enough there was difficulty relaying them in simple, plain English. He had been somewhere dark and cruel. Was it hell? Worse, maybe. There was nothing good or even human there. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness. But he knew somewhere in his heart that this was a place one could _never_ leave.

And then he heard a voice.

 _Betty’s_ voice. He knew when he heard it that this _was_ her. He felt none of the dread he’d felt the day before. But he felt an entirely different kind of dread, because she was distressed. In _agony_.

“Jughead…” she whimpered through the infernal murk. “Juggie…”

He tried to follow, helpless as he was in the wastes. Sometimes he swore he could very nearly see her figure in the darkness beyond, but then in a moment it was gone again.

“Betty, where are you?”

“Jughead…God, Jughead, please…”

“I’m coming, just—“

“No! Jughead listen…for God’s sake stay away from it.”

“What? Betty, where—“

“Stay away from it, _please_. Warn our friends. Warn everyone.”

“Betty what’s ‘it’? Please, tell me where you are, I—“

Her voice came one more time, more desperate and sharper, and yet somehow further away. Laced now with the utmost terror and urgency.

“That _thing_ isn’t me!”

The dream wouldn’t let him go, even when he awoke, and even when he shuffled onto the grounds of Riverdale High. A few leaves bowled past him in the wind. The cheap plastic skeletons and pumpkins erected courtesy of student council saw him through the front doors. It all seemed so shallow.

“My God,” Veronica gasped. “You look even worse than usual.”

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep,” Jughead said through gritted teeth.

“It shows.”

“Can we just…go to class?”

It was a gracious few minutes before Veronica asked him the question he didn’t want to think about.

“Where’s Betty?”

“I don’t know,” he said, truthfully.

“Well, how’s my girl holding up?” Veronica inquired.

“She’s…surviving,” he said, in what he immediately afterwards decided was a poor choice of words.

They saw for themselves that day at lunch, when Betty and Archie met them in the student lounge as was custom. Jughead contributed little to the contribution as his friends went on about this or that. He revisited last night’s dreams again and then yet again.

“Really, Jug? Did something happen to you? What’s up?” Betty finally asked. And Jughead’s first thought was that her voice was identical, and yet somehow entirely distinct from the voice in his nightmares.

“I’m okay,” he said, voice breaking.

“They probably cancelled Buzzfeed Unsolved,” Veronica joked.

Jughead shot her a look.

Archie shrugged.

The conversation got itself back on track, and Jughead retreated back into his own head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Veronica adjust her makeup with the help of a compact mirror. Then he saw Betty borrow it for something or the other. And the next thing he saw with perfect clarity. Betty brought it close to her face. She was breathing. He watched her chest rise and fall. The glass was an inch from her lips. But the mirror didn’t fog.

* * *

 

_The mirror didn’t fog._

He _had_ seen that, hadn’t he? Was he going mad?

She _had_ breathed onto the glass. He _saw_. But it didn’t fog.

But the glass should _always_ fog. That was how doctors told a corpse, back in the day. And God, she _wasn’t_ a corpse. Right?

Jughead nibbled on his third hamburger of the night. He peeked out through Pop’s fogging window. Polyester skeletons swayed from trees. Ribbons of black and orange fluttered at porches and doorways.

“Third one’s on the house,” Pop said from the counter.

“Thanks,” Jughead shivered.

He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to be anywhere alone right now. He wanted to be here where at least there was some light. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

What was _happening_ ? Was he absolutely losing it? Had he _really_ seen what he’d seen?

He was paranoid. He _always_ was.

Pop ambled over, greasy rag in hand, and said ruefully: “sorry Jughead, but I’ve gotta close up now.”

Jughead’s teeth chattered, and he couldn’t bring himself to respond. He got up, snatched his bag from the booth, and stumbled out into the night. He just hovered in the parking lot for a while, for some time unable to bring himself to abandon the comforting glow of Pop’s neon lights.

And he had only just taken his first few brave steps into the darkness when his phone buzzed again. It was a text. From Betty. His lips were dry.

_Do you want to come over?_

An animatronic witch perched in someone’s yard jerked her head to the side and he jumped.

 _Now?_ He texted back, tentatively.

_Sure_

She was typing again.

 _I’m alone,_ she finished.

Another bolt of fear. He _did_ want to go see her. It _would_ be nice to have the house to themselves. He _would_ like a hug and a kiss.

The cool, rational aspect of his brain promised everything was fine and nothing was wrong. And at the same time his base instincts that told him to go would be to walk into a monster’s den. Jughead thought of the glass that wouldn’t fog. He thought of his nightmares. He thought of those four words whose meaning he hadn’t quite sussed out…

_That thing isn’t me._

Jughead didn’t answer, and he went home.

And he had more nightmares. He was in the darkness again. The darkness was full of awful, terrible things that skittered and crawled and rasped against his flesh. He knew, somewhere deep, that they couldn’t not harm him yet. Not too badly. He was not resigned to this place yet.

“Jughead!” Came Betty’s voice again.

“Betty!” He called back, desperately. “Please…what’s going on?”

“Help me,” was the brittle, meek whisper that came creeping through the darkness. “Help me. I can’t see. I can’t feel. I can’t—“

Tears rolled down his cheeks. He slogged deeper through the cold wastes of this hell.

“Please tell me wh—“

“It…please, it has my face.”

Then something shifted in the dark, and hideous, rotting claws dug into his chest and tore him awake. He gasped and cried out, and then rolled out of bed, half striking his head on the nightstand. He swore and stumbled to his feet. It was still dark and he _needed_ light. His fingers grasped for the light switch, and as he brushed plastic he felt that prickling sensation off to his left that told him he wasn’t alone in the trailer, even though he most certainly should have been.

But he hit the light, and whatever was with him was gone. For now. He backed himself into a corner of the bed and sat awake.

After a few minutes of recovery, to the point where he could push past the stupefying terror and actually _move_ , he texted Archie. He needed _something_ to distract him.

_Hey_

Archie typed.

**_Hey_ **

_What’s up, Archie?_

**_Actually, this is Veronica. I stole his phone (shhhh)._ **

_Let me guess. He’s knocked out?_

**_Yep. Why aren’t you?_ **

_Can I call you?_

**_Go ahead._ **

He dialed Archie’s number. Veronica immediately picked up.

“Mr. Forsythe Pendleton Jones III…what are you doing up at this _ungodly_ hour on a school night?”

He smiled, already feeling a little better.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“Well I was _ostensibly_ helping Archie with chem homework, but since he passed out on me at half-past 10:00 I’ve been helping myself to the fridge and going through Mr. Andrews vinyls for the past couple of hours. I think this AC/DC record might actually be worth something.”

Jughead laughed.

“So why _are_ you up?” She asked again.

“I had…a nightmare, okay?

He heard Veronica snicker on the other end.

“Aww, _poor baby_.”

“Shut up,” he half-giggled. “It was…fucked up, alright? It was like a…Nightmare on Elm Street sort of ambience. But not as funny.”

“What was it about?”

He swallowed, and realized then he didn’t really want to discuss it in great detail.

“It was about…Betty.”

“Oh,” her voice picked up some gravity. “About…”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been…well I’ve been thinking about it more probably more than is healthy, too. I mean, I’m over the moon that she’s okay, but…I don’t know, she hasn’t talked to you about any of it, has she?”

“You mean about being dead for nearly forty-eight hours? No,” Jughead said.

“I just wonder…it can’t have been…good for her head,” Veronica said softly.

Jughead grimaced, and drew his knees up to his chest.

“What do you think…” he cut himself off. He was going to mention the mirror. But she hadn’t seen. No one had. But him. And she would just say he was seeing things. And maybe he was. “What do you think _happened_?” He asked at last.

“When?”

“When she was…you know…gone.”

“Oooh…” Veronica trilled. “Are you asking me what I think what happens when you die? Well, it _is_ almost Halloween…”

“Uh…”

She began to speak again in a cold, crackling voice.

“You _know_ when you’re dead. You know because it’s _so_ much worse than being alive. The moment you’re dead, you wish _nothing_ more than that you were alive again.”

Jughead felt his stomach twist up. He didn’t want to tell her she was _scaring_ him, but…

“Veronica…”

“They’re wrapping up your body and getting it ready for burial, but none of that matters to you, where you are. There’s no fire, not really. It’s worse than fire. It’s like things are ripping away at you. Not at your meat, at _you_ . And you sink further and further into the dark with these things ripping at you.” Her voice climbed towards a crescendo. And soon enough, it wasn’t Veronica anymore. It was older and more powerful. Something with too many voices was speaking. Jughead’s teeth were chattering again. “And your body? Your husk? Well, that’s the worst part.” The voice that wasn’t Veronica Lodge and couldn’t have been anything half human, went on. “It’s wide open. Vacant. And if something really wants to crawl out of the dark, it can wear your face like a mask. It can see through your eyes. See your life. See the faces of your loved ones. It can walk like you and move like you, and you’d only know if you looked _really_ closely, and if you’d looked that closely, well…”

“Veronica!”

“What?” And she was back. Veronica’s chipper voice tittered over the line. Sweat pasted Jughead’s shirt and shorts to his skin.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“What you just—“

And she sounded truly confused.

“What I what? Are you okay?”

“Veronica…what was the last thing you said?”

“You…asked me what I thought happened when Betty was…you know…”

“And then?”

“And then nothing? You shouted ‘Veronica’ like I’d insulted your mother?”

A tremor moved down his body.

“I have to go,” he stammered.

* * *

 

Cheryl was satisfied with the decorations. The cobwebs actually looked real, and the severed limbs scattered about pell-mell didn’t look nearly as plastic as in previous years. She’d even managed to get student council to do away with the polyester skeletons she so hated.

The Halloween dance was her brainchild, and she was damn proud of it. Attendance was respectable, too. She leaned against the far wall of the auditorium, and watched the knots of students trail across and over the dance floor. Not many were actually _dancing_ , but that was alright.

Veronica Lodge sidled up to her, dressed like a 60s _Star Trek_ sort of green alien beauty.

“What are you supposed to be,” Veronica asked. “Are you you, with a worse eye for fashion?”

Cheryl scowled and smoothed her colonial skirts.

“I’ve decided to honor my great-great-great grandmather, Liberty Blossom, by—“

“By dressing as her,” Veronica nodded and sipped her punch. “Woah. That’s not…odd in the slightest.”

“Well, I can’t help it that you’ve got no appreciation for pedigree.” She sniffed. “ _Nouveau riche.”_

Veronica rolled her eyes. She was about to say something else when Betty came up behind her and gently gripped her arm. For a moment, Cheryl locked eyes with the blonde. She remembered that odd encounter in the locker room some days ago. Her stomach fluttered. Betty stared back at her, and said nothing. She whispered something to Veronica, who nodded.

“See you around,” Veronica waved and then allowed Betty to lead her away.

Cheryl licked her lips. Betty Cooper had been seriously freaking her out ever since her unlooked for resurrection. It wasn’t something she could really describe. Just something that felt…off.

She removed to the bathroom for a moment of quiet. A quick glance in the mirror revealed that her painstakingly applied Regency makeup was coming a little undone, and she bent to repair the damage.

The door to the bathroom opened. Cheryl whirled around. Betty stepped inside and flashed a disarming smile.

“Hey, Cheryl.”

Cheryl sucked in some deep breaths and told herself to calm down and stop being stupid. Betty took a few steps closer. Cheryl’s skin prickled.

“Uh…stalls are over _there_ ,” Cheryl snarked, gesturing the plainly visible toilets at their immediate left.

“I know,” Betty answered. “Really great job you did with the dance, by the way.” She smiled wider, perfect white teeth sparkling in the fluorescent bathroom lights. “Spooky.”

“Are you about to ask me to make a charitable donation?”

“Take a compliment Cheryl. Geez.”

Cheryl turned around to the mirror again. She brushed a few strands of red hair aside. Then she lifted up her eyes. Indeed, there was a figure behind her, reflected in the mirror. But it wasn’t Elizabeth Cooper. It wasn’t anything that belonged here or anywhere in the goddamned world. Cheryl could hardly have made sense of the thing if she tried. It was black evil given form, predatory, gibbering maw and and a thousand eyes concentrated into a pair of lightless pinpricks. And she knew these were only disparate pieces of it, aspects of its face, because her brittle mind couldn’t accommodate the whole. She knew only that it was dark and towering, twisted and awful.

Cheryl let out a kind of squeak of terror and spun around, her back knocking against the sink. And standing there, in front of her now, was Betty again. Very human. _Apparently_ very human. _Apparently_ meant nothing now. Cheryl’s vision flickered, but by God she would not faint here, not here with Betty. Or rather with the thing that was wearing her face.

God, did it know she had seen it? Did it—

She had to get out of here. That was her only instinct. The wild, animal need to be _away_ . To be free and _safe._ But Betty was between her and the door.

“Cheryl, what’s wrong?” Came the voice with its convincing, touching concern. “God, are you okay? You look like—“

Cheryl summoned up her courage and barreled past the thing in human skin and back into the dim light of the dance.

She meshed back into the crowd of students, trying very hard not to hear the bathroom door creak open again, and something step out after her.

* * *

 

As it often did, Jughead’s intellectual curiosity found itself at war with his emotions. Something was going wrong, whether it was his head or the world.

He kept on coming back to that _goddamned mirror_ that wouldn’t fog. And then the brutal terror that consumed him each and every time he was with Betty. He had to figure this out, whatever _it_ was. Maybe it would come out that he was just insane. He should be so lucky.

Jughead raised a fist and knocked.

He waited the customary fifteen seconds. As usual, the door swung open. He found Alice Cooper staring back at him, arms crossed.

“Oh. Good afternoon, Jughead.”

“Hey, Mrs. Cooper,” he said with a sharp mock salute. “Is Betty home?” He knew she wasn’t.

“No. She’s at cheer practice, God help her,” Mrs. Cooper said flatly. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, as if looking for something. Her left hand gripped the doorframe, and Jughead noticed her fingers trembling.

Jughead nodded.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Actually, I just needed to pick up some notebooks I left her a few weeks back. School stuff, you know.” He hoped she wouldn’t call attention to the fact he hadn’t been to visit in a few weeks, now.

Mrs. Cooper licked her lips, and then nodded.

“Just be quick.”

Jughead mumbled his thanks and moved past her. He hurried up the stairs and into Betty’s room. And immediately, something was off.

Everything was too perfect. Too _unlived_ . Betty was neat, sure. But not _so_ neat. Everything looked _untouched_. The bed. The drawers. The closet. More like a drawing of a young woman’s bedroom than the genuine article. Like something was trying to deceive him. He didn’t know what he had expected to find here. Something that would put all his fears to rest? Something to confirm them?

Of course, he had no real notes to pick up, so he turned in a slow circle, and when he could stand it no more, hurried out of the room and back down the stairs.

Jughead found Alice standing near the foot of the stairs, as if waiting to usher him out, which he supposed was in character.

“Did you find what you needed?” She asked.

He nodded in the affirmative. Then asked, on a whim: “how have things been?”

Mrs. Cooper face looked very strange for a moment, like a mask slipped. She fixed it very quickly.

“What do you mean?”

“With…everything. Ever since Betty…came home?”

If he had to translate her expression, he would have done so as: “ _Did Betty come home?”_

He awkwardly angled his way down the stairs, waiting for an answer.

“Everything’s fine,” Alice finally answered, brusquely. “Betty’s a strong girl.”

Was she on the verge of tears? Her lip trembled. Jughead kept on nodding along.

“I’ll see you around, Mrs. Cooper,” he said as he clicked the front door open. Alice suddenly stepped forward and grabbed him around the wrist. She wasn’t rough but he half-gasped in shock.

“Jughead,” she intoned, eyes weary and frightened and more than anything, trapped. “Don’t be alone.”

“I—I’m sorry, what?”

“Just don’t go alone anywhere with _anyone_ , no matter what they ask you. Don’t catch yourself alone anywhere. Keep people around.”

And then she shoved him out the door and locked it behind him.

* * *

Jughead didn’t sleep much. The few snatches he caught were filled with the same black, awful nightmares. Betty’s voice, whimpering and sobbing in the dark. Himself, useless to her and to anyone. Then, always, devils tearing him into before he cringed awake soaked in sweat.

When he awoke that morning, his phone was clogged with messages. From Betty.

_Jughead. I really need to talk to you. I can’t help but feel like you’ve been avoiding me. Can we please talk about it? Will you meet me before school today?_

And then a sad little frowning emoji.

Twin pangs of guilt and horror. He should go. He _should_ go. He was being an idiot. God, maybe he should see a shrink. In all likelihood this was some kind of teenage-onset insanity. He _should_ go. This was _Betty Cooper_ , sugar spice and everything nice. Was he _sick_?

And then he remembered Alice’s warning.

_Don’t go alone with anyone, anywhere._

He licked his lips.

 _I’ll meet you at school,_ he said at last.

When he met her beside her locker twenty minutes before first period, for a very brief period everything felt normal and nice again. She smiled again and tugged her flaxen ponytail. He felt a warm, liquid relief in his chest. Long lashes fluttered over ocean eyes. She looked quite perfect, and he almost laughed to imagine how he must look, with his mussed up hair and sleepless eyes and cracked lips.

She pulled him into an embrace and he told himself again there was no reason to be anything but comfortable.

“God, you look awful!” She sighed. “I mean…not well.”

“I uh…had a falling out with the Sandman,” he joked weakly.

“Won’t you tell me what’s wrong? I know it’s _something_.” She crossed her arms, half in good humor.

“I’m just a little overwhelmed lately, that’s all,” he said.

“Does it have to do with me?” She asked the million dollar question, and he felt hurt. “With…”

“Betty, I—“ what use was there in lying. “Yes, okay? I know it’s selfish. I’m—I’m really sorry, alright? I’m so, so glad you’re fine and here and okay. I really am. It’s just…all of this has been so much. I know I don’t have any right to feel like that, _you’re_ the one who’s been through hell, not me. I—“

She lurched forward and hugged him.

The tears bubbled up in his eyes. His heart cracked open. He was tired and he was scared and scared and he just wanted his girlfriend back.

“Jughead…” she cooed gently into his ear. “Don’t worry. She’s fine.”

The hairs on his neck stood on end. A queasy shiver trailed down the length of his spine until his knees shook.

 _She?_ Not ‘ _I’. She._

_What in God’s name was he speaking with?_

He pulled out of the embrace, perhaps a little too briskly.

“We uh…I gotta get to first period,” he stammered, and then hurried away as fast as he could go.

* * *

 

Cheryl threw her lunch away. She’d hardly eaten a bite in the past few days. How could she? She would see that _thing_ in the mirror, made even worse by the distortions of memory, and then her stomach would turn and her throat fill with bile.

She sat in a corner of the cafeteria, back to the wall, and hoping to God Betty didn’t come in today. She was still trying her damndest to make sense of what she’d seen. Did she believe in ghosts? In spirits? In anything beyond the material? She hadn’t ever given it much thought. But whatever had leered at her through the mirror that night was without reason and sense.

Cheryl knocked her knuckles together and murmured to herself. She liked things to make sense. She liked things to be predictable and rational. She could operate like that. She could maneuver through life when it was governed by reason and when the people therein were boring and earthly. She couldn’t grapple with a world where devils raised up the corpse of her high school classmate.

Just within earshot, Jughead Jones and Veronica Lodge sat down to lunch. Cheryl breathed a sigh of relief to see that Betty Cooper—or rather, the thing masquerading as her—was not with them.

She caught snatches of conversation. It was mostly terse and bland, as it tended to be when the two were forced into interaction without Betty or Archie. But a few minutes in she heard Jughead ask something:

“Have you noticed anything _off_ about Betty?”

Cheryl didn’t quite catch Veronica’s response, but she caught Jughead’s next words.

“No, I mean _very_ off. Ever since…”

She felt a strange rush of hope. She didn’t know why. Perhaps just the thought that maybe she wasn’t mad and someone else saw what she saw.

The conversation faded into noise as the cafeteria filled up, but Cheryl could tell both Jughead and Veronica were growing agitated. A loose plan coalesced in her head. Not so much of a plan, really. Just desperation. She had to do _something_.

She waited around the corner from Jughead’s fifth period class that afternoon, tapping her fingers on her thighs and counting down every minute of vanishing sunlight. When the bell rang and the class filed out, she waited until young Jones passed her by, then she sprung forward and grabbed him around the wrist.

He screamed, a truly awful and convinced scream.

“Deep breaths, Oliver Twist, it’s me,” she hissed.

“What the hell is your problem, Cheryl?” He snapped.

She jabbed him in the lower back and guided him surreptitiously out of the hall, into the little alcove between the bathrooms and the first floor art classroom.

“I need to talk to you.”

“About what?” He slapped her hand away.

“About your erstwhile girlfriend.” She half-whispered, and then she looked over her shoulder. The sun was going down fast.

“Erstwhile…what are you…”

But she saw in his eyes that he already knew full well what she meant.

“I heard you talking with Veronica.”

“Oh. You just _heard_ . Just _happened_ to be passing by, I’m sure.”

“When you said something was ‘off’ about Betty, what did you mean?”

He snorted in a very poor attempt to pretend indifference. Then he moved to get past her back into the hall. She blocked his route.

“Cheryl, I don’t—“

“I’ll get down to brass tacks: how sure are you that whatever crawled off of the coroner’s slab a month ago was really Elizabeth Cooper?”

She could practically see the bells go off in his head. She could _certainly_ see his eyes widen.

“I don’t know what you—“ he tried to say, very unconvincingly.

“I’m serious!”

His face fell in a kind of defeat.

“What are you talking about?” He croaked. His lips trembled. “What did you see? What are you thinking?”

She told him about that odd night in the locker rooms, and more than anything, about the thing in the mirror. And he told her about the phantom phone call with Veronica, and about his strange encounter with Alice Cooper, and about the mirror that wouldn’t fog.

“Do you…have nightmares, lately?” Jughead asked.

Cheryl smacked her lips. God, she wished he hadn’t asked that.

“Nightmare undersells them but…”

“You’re somewhere dark? Somewhere…you hear—”

“Stop.” She half-commanded. “Yes.”

“This doesn’t happen,” Jughead said pitifully.

Cheryl felt herself on the verge of helpless, frightened tears.

“Do you believe in hell, Jughead?” she asked.

* * *

 

They sat in Riverdale’s town library, two cups of cooling coffee between them. Jughead’s eyes reddened with every ticking second of the clocks. Midnight went by. His lips moved silently as he spoke to himself. Cheryl’s eyes glistened hollow in the light of her laptop.

The place was near empty. Occasionally an odd cough would reverberate through the old building. The withering old master of the library hunched over his desk on the far end of the room.

“I knew there was something unnatural in play,” Cheryl pronounced. “I _knew_ no one could get up and walk after nearly _two days_ stone dead! Tells you something about the quality of the healthcare system in this country! I knew—“

“Enough!” Jughead finally snapped. He rubbed his exhausted face. “Just…please.” She shrugged. “If it’s…if there’s really something else pretending…” he couldn’t finish his sentence. “Then where is _Betty_?”

Cheryl made a gesture of helplessness.

“How should I know?”

“Is she in that…place? From my nightm—“ he put a fist to his mouth to shut himself up.

“Save the afterlife for after. Of more immediate relevance is the thing wearing your girlfriend like a suit.”

“This _isn’t_ funny,” he rasped.

Her face was devoid of humor.

“What about an exorcism?” She said.

“An _exorcism_? Woah, Cheryl, I didn’t know you’d been ordained! Which—“

“Shut up! Do _you_ have any ideas?”

“No, I don’t! _You’re_ the one who asked me to meet you at the library so we could discuss a damn exorcism!” He rubbed his eyes. “Look, we need to be sure. We—“

She snorted.

“Don’t pretend you aren’t convinced yet. How else do you explain what we’ve seen? Heard?”

“I need to be _sure_.”

Cheryl pursed her lips and threw her head back. “Sure. You know, there’s that scene in _the Thing_ , with the petri dishes full of blood? I—“

“How are you _joking_ right now?”

She didn’t answer. She tented her fingers and narrowed her eyes.

“You said that when she breathed on Veronica’s mirror there was no fog. I saw the face—the _real_ reflection—of that thing reflected in a bathroom mirror. Isn’t that the old story? Mirrors reveal the truth? They’re windows to the other side?”

Jughead grudgingly approved the train of thought.

“How long did the reflection last?” He questioned. “The one you…saw?” His every word felt like a transgression.

“A second. Maybe two,” Cheryl said. “When I looked away and then looked back, the reflection was…normal. It was…her.”

“Almost like it only holds so long as someone isn’t looking too intently. When someone turns to look at it, the thing…normalizes its reflection. Makes it…human.” He wanted to vomit.

Cheryl nodded along, hands shaking.

“So we catch a reflection without a human eye?”

“A camera,” Jughead finished the thought.

“Would that even—“ she started. “Oh, forget it. It’s half my idea, anyways.”

“And how do I ask to film her reflection without coming across suspicious.”

“You’re her beaux,” Cheryl oozed. “You tell me.”

“I don’t—I don’t know.” He covered his mouth again. “But I don’t want to do it alone,” he said almost pleadingly.

“You want me to come _with_ you? You don’t think _that_ would arouse suspicion?”

“I’m not doing it alone,” he said flatly. “Come up with an excuse. Something for school.”

“And then what? We get her—get _it_ in front of a mirror and make sure sh— _it_ doesn’t notice we’re filming.”

He shrugged as if to say: “pretty much.”

And so they put together their ‘plan’. They’d ask to come to the Cooper house the next day, the pretense for their joint visit being some vaguely defined potential collaboration between the Blue and Gold and the cheerleading team. And while there, they’d try their best to get what was ostensibly Betty Cooper in front of a mirror, and film.

It was hardly a plan. They had no reason to believe it would work. But even thinking to themselves that they _had_ a plan was eminently comforting. And they had nothing else.

He even had the temerity to ask Cheryl for a hug, because he really needed one. And to his surprise, she acquiesced.

* * *

 

That night, Jughead was in the darkness again. He heard Betty’s voice, again. Except there were hardly any words, this time. Just a staccato, weak sobbing. And then, through the impossible haze: “don’t. don’t. don’t.”

When he tore awake that morning, he took hold of the fleeting sense of purpose in his breast. He dragged himself to his feet and dressed. He avoided looking into the trailer’s mirrors, and then he said a quick prayer to the God he doubted was real.

He texted Cheryl.

The response was nearly immediate.

_I already talked to her. She said we could come over. Come over, now._

Another deep breath.

Bereft of any other means of transportation, he trudged across town, unconsciously but very clearly dragging his feet. He struggled past the daggers of terror in his chest as he rounded the corner onto Elm Street.

Jughead had visited Betty at home a thousand times. It was more like a home than his father’s trailer really. But today he would have given anything so that he could turn and run as fast as possible from the place.

Cheryl’s car was already parked in the driveway. He moved towards the door with the purpose of a man condemned. And he knocked.

A voice that was unmistakably Cheryl’s called out from inside: “door’s open!”

A slight relief. She was here, and she was fine. The whole idea was silly, in the light of day. Perhaps everything would be okay.

He reached out and clicked the door open, and stepped inside.

But when he did, there was no sign of Cheryl. In fact, the house was dark and lifeless. The TV was out. The bulbs were dimmed. Even the light breeze outside seemed to stop at the kitchen’s half-open windows. No curtains stirred. He took a tentative step forward.

“Cheryl?” He called out, cautiously. And of course, no response. His heart was wildly battering away at his chest. “Mrs. Cooper?” Then finally, through all the pain and fear: “Betty?” He looked down at the floor beneath his feet. The carpet was shredded clean through, and the wood beneath marked up with deep, ghastly grooves. It almost reminded him of a cat’s scratching post, except there was no reason or pattern to the marks. Like some creature made only of sharp, gouging fangs and ragged claws had slithered through. The heavy front door slowly swung shut behind him.

He turned around. And there she was.

Betty stood perfectly between him and his only avenue of escape. She smiled, very polite and very welcoming.

“Hey, Jug.”

“Betty,” he was amazed that he was able to speak. “Where’s Cheryl?”

“Why?”

“Where is she?” He demanded again, voice breaking.

“It’s about time you came by for a visit.” She took a few steps forward and reached her arms out, as if for an embrace. He scrambled away, until his knees knocked against the stairwell behind him. Jughead’s fingers dug into his pocket, and he drew out his switchblade. Betty staggered back.

“Stop,” he begged more than commanded, voice hoarse with terror. “Where is Cheryl? Betty—you, you aren’t—who— _what_ are you?”

“What are you _talking_ about, Jug? You’re scaring me. Put the—put the knife away! You—it’s me!” 

Her affected terror frightened him all the more, because it sounded almost  _mocking_. 

“No!” He gasped. “You…I don’t now what you are. You _aren’t_ Betty!”

And the thing—for he knew now that it was a _thing_ , smiled with Betty’s lips, and it said: “why not?”

**Author's Note:**

> happy Halloween


End file.
